by J N Wood
‘Yes, for seven days I have been looking for them. We live in Bridgeport. It is about 130 kilometres from here.’ He must have noticed me nod my head. ‘Oh, do you know it?’ he asked.
I’d just nodded to be polite. Slightly embarrassed I said, ‘No sorry, never heard of it…carry on.’
‘Oh okay, we stopped here for something to eat, and when I saw the Bed, Bath & Beyond store.’ He pointed towards the main doors, ‘I decided we should stay for the night.’
Yep, this definitely wasn’t going to end well, I haven’t seen that shop here.
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘The following morning I went to the Walmart next door to get us something for breakfast. I thought I could make something nice for the children, they had been very upset by everything.’
His head dropped and he paused for a few moments. It was long enough for me to wonder if I should say something, but a few seconds later he continued.
‘I was in the Walmart store and I heard a very loud noise from above me, it was the airplane coming down. The shop was shaking and there were lots of explosions. I was very scared so I just hid. I should have gone back to my family straight away.’
‘Well its understandable mate, anyone would have been scared.’
‘I left them alone, and now I cannot find them. I went back outside, but the store and my family were no longer there, the airplane had destroyed everything.’
He looked at me with wet eyes.
‘Fucking hell Gurbinder, I’m so sorry.’
He opened his mouth to say something but was stopped by the sound of the front doors opening. I instinctively ducked down behind one of the displays. Gurbinder was frantically trying to back himself into a rack of clothing.
A male voice boomed out and echoed through the shop. ‘Hey you little raghead asshole, we saw you in here.’
Shit, my torch was still on. I quickly clicked it off but they must have seen the light.
The same voice shouted. ‘Why don’t you come out to say hello? We just wanna talk to you. Don’t you wanna come talk to us?’
I looked over to Gurbinder, he had a trembling finger to his lips and his eyes were pleading with me. He looked terrified.
I could hear their footsteps as they walked further into the shop. It sounded like there was definitely more than one of them, and they were heading in our direction.
I looked Gurbinder in the eyes and mouthed the words, ‘Who the fuck are they?’
He just shook his head and moved further into the clothes he was trying to hide behind.
This time a different man started talking. ‘Come on out Al-Qaeda, stop making this harder than it has to be. We just wanna talk.’ The voice sounded overly charming and just as creepy.
Fuck’s sake, as if we don’t have enough to worry about. Why had these fucking arseholes survived?
There’s only so many places to hide in here, so they’ll find us eventually. Fuck it. They wouldn’t do anything to me. The last time I checked I was white, well…mostly. I just had a few purple patches.
I held my crouched position and shouted to them. ‘Hello, I’m not the guy you’re looking for.’ I waited for a reply. The sound of their footsteps had stopped, but I didn’t get a response.
‘I’m gonna stand up. Okay?’
The shop was silent.
‘Right, I’m standing up,’ I said, waiting two seconds before getting to my feet.
Two men and two women were looking straight at me. Four rifles were being aimed at my face. I slowly raised my hands above my head. All four of them were dressed in camouflage clothing and caps. They reminded me of the people from that duck hunter TV show.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ One of the women asked, then leaned forward and spat on the floor.
Lovely, they seem like really nice people. Where are all the zombies when you need them?
‘I’m Chris, just came in here to get some clothes and shit. I’m only passing through.’ I pointed behind me in the general direction of the road.
‘Where you passing through to exactly?’ The taller of the two men asked.
I was trying not to stare at their guns. They all seemed like they were being aimed at my eyes.
‘I’m trying to get to California.’
‘You planning on doing some surfing?’ The spitting woman asked. All four of them started to laugh.
I raised my eyebrows and tried to give them a sincere smile. ‘Nope, just gonna meet up with some friends.’
‘You seen a sand nigger…’ The taller man paused and smiled. ‘Sorry, I meant to ask if you seen an Arab in here? We saw your flashlight and thought you might have been our little Arab friend.’
Fucking hell. Seriously, I would have been over the moon if that tsunami swarm had suddenly appeared.
‘Nope, afraid not. You four are the first alive people I’ve seen in about a week.’ I think I sounded believable.
And I was fairly certain I hadn’t seen an Arab recently.
‘You got all the shit you need?’ The shorter man asked.
‘Erm yeah, I was just leaving.’
For a long moment we all just stood staring at each other.
The spitting woman broke the silence. ‘Well, what the fuck you waiting for? Get out of here.’ She turned and beckoned me toward the main doors. ‘Go on, get!’
‘Okay, yep, just on my way.’ I started walking for the exit but stopped when I was alongside them. ‘By the way, I think I might have seen something in the Walmart when I first got here, could have been the friend you’re looking for.’
‘Thought you said you ain’t seen nobody for a week?’ the spitting woman asked.
‘I haven’t, but like I literally just said, I think I might have seen something in the Walmart. Could have been a zombie for all I know.’
The duck hunters seemed to be a bit annoyed at my sarcastic tone.
I carried on walking but stopped to face them when I was half way to the exit.
‘Come on, I’ll show you if you want?’ I said
They all looked at each other without speaking. The spitting woman turned to me and made a grunting sound I assumed meant yes, because they all followed me out of the sports shop.
When we were halfway across the fiery car park, the taller man said, ‘Hey, so you English or Irish? Coz I hate the English.’
At least he hadn’t asked me if I was from London.
‘Well at the moment I’m definitely Irish then.’ I didn’t turn around to see their reactions.
What the fuck are you doing Chris? You’re gonna get yourself killed by some fucking racist duck hunters.
I tried to avoid walking too close to my car, but as we neared the road separating the two car parks, one of the men spoke up. ‘Hey Irish, this your car?’ I turned and the taller man was pointing at the Rav.
‘Yep, that’s mine.’ I waited for some kind of reply, but nothing was offered so I carried on walking.
Did they actually believe me when I said I was Irish?
We were standing near the entrance of the Walmart. ‘So yeah, thought I saw something just there.’ I was attempting to point at the main doors with my left hand, while I unclasped my gun holster with my right. At the same time I was desperately trying to hold onto my new sleeping bag and tent. ‘Ok, I’ll get myself off then, good luck finding your friend. Nice to meet you all.’
I was about five or six steps away when the shorter man spoke. ‘Hang on a minute Irish. You got yourself a nice Legion there.’
Bollocks, for a while there I thought I might have been able to walk away.
I spun around and saw him pointing at my right hip. ‘I’m gonna assume you’re talking about my gun?’ I asked.
He slowly nodded and a toothless grin spread across his face.
This was fucking stupid. I’m gonna get shot here.
‘Come on mate, there’s not many people left and there’s fucking shitloads of gun shops in this country. I’m sure you could pick up another one of these quite ea
sily,’ I said.
All four of their heads snapped to the left when Gurbinder shouted, ‘Hey you racist fuckers I am not an Arab! I’m from India!’
I looked for him and just spotted his turban, before it disappeared behind a car in the distance.
The duck hunters raised their guns and fired off two or three shots each towards Gurbinder, the bullets pinging off cars. I dropped behind a car close to me.
After dropping my tent and sleeping bag to the floor I pulled out my gun. Holding it in a two handed grip I flicked off the safety with my thumb, aimed at the shorter guy first and started firing. I tried to track the gun across all four of them, continuing to pull the trigger until it was empty.
I was almost certain I’d hit three of them. The recoil of the gun and the incredible noise made me blink constantly.
They were stood out in the open so they were easy targets. Even I could have hit them. The duck hunters hadn’t even had time to turn in my direction.
One of the shots could have been fatal, three of them fell to the ground, but in the chaos that ensued I couldn’t tell if they were dead or alive.
I quickly gathered up my things and started running back to my car. My poor heart was complaining again, how much adrenaline can one person produce?
I crouched down as low as I could and tried to make sure there was always something solid in between my arse and the hunter’s guns. The firing started up again but I couldn’t tell if they were shooting at me, or at Gurbinder.
I wasn’t about to stop to find out.
I dived around the other side of the Rav, opened the back door and flung my stuff in. I slowly lifted my head up and around the back of the car to see what was happening. Two of the hunters were climbing into a pick-up truck not far from where I’d left them. Gurbinder was out of sight.
Right, it was definitely time to leave. Sorry Gurbinder but it’s every man for themselves.
I quickly got the Rav started and headed back towards the main road. I checked the rear view mirror as I turned right to re-join the US-395, and they weren’t far behind. Their pick-up looked old so I hoped it wouldn’t be able to keep up with me.
Old doesn’t necessarily mean slow.
Fucking hell. How have I got myself into this shitty situation?
If I’d killed one or maybe even two of them they’re gonna be especially fucking pissed off. They looked like the types who would want to string me up and feed my balls to the zombies.
Actually they probably wanted to get their banjos out and then make me squeal like a pig.
I’d been driving like a maniac for twenty minutes and they were still following me. They weren’t catching me up but I couldn’t pull away from them.
I’d left the 395 not long before and turned onto the NV-88. This was the route I’d already planned to take through the forests. I didn’t want to deviate from the route because I didn’t know the other roads, and I figured the racist fuckers following me probably did.
Apart from getting captured and tortured by two hillbillies, I was also worrying about the fact that I hadn’t found myself a snow plough, and I wouldn’t have time to get the snow socks onto my tyres before I drove into a pile of snow. With this in mind I decided I would have to try and lose them before hitting the mountains.
I drove around the next bend and realised it was probably a bit too late, there was snow on the ground. My heart skipped a beat when I glanced at the mirrors, because I couldn’t see them, but twenty seconds later they came back into sight.
Fuck!
I tried to look at the California road map and the road at the same time. There was nowhere obvious on the map to try and fucking lose them. I just needed to carry on driving and hope for the best.
Ten minutes later and I was officially shitting myself. The snow was at least half a foot deep at times, and I was really struggling to keep control of the Rav. Every time I spotted the pick-up behind me they looked like they were out for an afternoon drive, like they didn’t have a care in the world. On the other hand it seemed that death awaited me every time I even slightly turned the steering wheel.
At some point I was definitely gonna skid off the road, and I would have to make a run for it into the woods. I just hoped that I would still be able to run after crashing.
With my left hand gripping onto the steering wheel, I clipped my tent and sleeping bag onto my back pack. After making sure any food and water that was within reach was in my bag, I rolled up the road map and stuffed it into my pocket.
It felt like I was going incredibly slowly, but the truck behind had only caught me up slightly. The last time I’d counted how far they were behind me I’d reached twenty five seconds.
Was that enough time for me to get away before they could pull up, step out, and shoot me in the back?
They looked like hunters but that didn’t mean they were good shots, they could be shit hunters. They didn’t manage to shoot me in the car park, but that could have been because they’d been concentrating on shooting poor Gurbinder.
Do you have any choice Chris? No you fucking don’t.
The snow was getting deeper and the car was very quickly becoming harder to control, so I made a snap decision.
Just before I turned a sharp corner I started to brake, managing to stop the Rav just around the bend. Hopefully they wouldn’t see my abandoned car and smash into the back of it, giving me a bit more time to get away. I grabbed one of the straps of my bag and headed out into the snow.
I wasn’t travelling as fast as I would have liked. Once I was off the road the ground under the snow wasn’t level, making me constantly lose my balance and fall over.
I was expecting to hear gunfire, but instead, a very satisfying crunching noise followed by the shattering of glass echoed through the trees. I forced back a laugh and continued trying to stay on my feet as I leapt and ran.
I couldn’t hear anything else other than my boots crunching through the three foot deep snow.
All through the night I ran and fell over, and then ran and fell over some more. My lungs were screaming at me to stop but when the sun came up, I decided to keep going. There wouldn’t be many zombies up here, so hopefully I shouldn’t have to worry about it being daytime. I had no idea how desperate the hunters were gonna be, so while I still felt able, I was going to run and fall over, and get up and run again.
A couple of hours later, when I felt like I really couldn’t go on any further, I stopped to look for somewhere to set up camp. I found a sheltered bit of land behind a close crop of trees. The snow wasn’t as deep around here so I managed to scrape a lot of it away, and pitch the tent.
It was a small tent, actually no. It was a fucking ridiculously tiny tent. I imagined there’d be more space in a coffin. I’d picked out another good sleeping bag so I was warm, and I supposed that was the most important thing.
The GPS was still working on my phone, so I could kind of figure out where I’d ended up. I was surprised to find I’d been running in the right direction. Almost.
I spoke to myself out loud. ‘I think it’s about forty five miles from here to the west edge of the forests.’ Drawing my finger along the road on the map. ‘But that’s only the edge of the forest according to this map.’
I moved my finger on the map over to the east side of the forests, where it changed from a grey colour to green. ‘On the way in I didn’t hit the snow until I was well into the green forest bit, so hopefully when I start going downhill the snow will disappear before I reach the end of the forests. Then I can find another vehicle.’
I tried to calculate how long it would take for me to walk to the point where it changed from green to grey.
‘So, I can comfortably walk at four miles per hour for quite a long time. I wouldn’t call this comfortable walking terrain but let’s be optimistic for once Chris, and only knock it down to three miles per hour. That means if it is forty five miles, and that’s the worst case scenario, it will take me about fifteen hours. Fuck, that’s a lot
of walking in snow.’
Worst case scenario Chris, worst case scenario, just remember that.
DAY TWELVE
Every time I’d been to a part of America that supposedly had bears, even if we were told we’d definitely see one, I was always left very disappointed. Park Rangers would say to me, Oh if you go to this part of the park, you will definitely see a bear. Six have already been spotted today.
I never saw a fucking bear.
There was definitely something making snuffling noises at the edges of my tent, and because mine is the smallest tent anyone has ever seen, it was snuffling at the edges of me. If we had been planning on actually coming to this part of America I would have done a bit of research into the area.
Did they even have bears here? Or was it a Mountain Lion? I had no fucking idea.
I did remember reading something about not keeping your food in the tent with you. I very carefully moved my head to look at two empty packets of crisps and a half eaten packet of beef jerky. They were only a few inches away from my face.
Bollocks.
I very slowly unzipped my sleeping bag. Once I was free I placed my left hand on the zip that opened to the outside, and held my gun in my right. Then I remembered. I hadn’t reloaded the gun after last night, so I put that down and pulled out the little axe from the side of my backpack.
My heart was thumping away. It was getting faster and faster by the second.
I started shouting as loudly as I could. ‘Arrrrggghhh! Bear! I’m coming out now! Arrrrggghhh!’
I pulled down on the zip but the fucking thing got stuck. I dropped the axe and grabbed the top of the tent with my right hand and tried to pull the zip down again.
I was still shouting at the top of my voice. ‘Arrrrggghhh! Wait a minute bear! I’m still gonna come out! Arrrrggghhh!’
The zip came unstuck and I scrambled out of my tent, ready to make myself look as big as possible. I was halfway out when I saw a deer prancing away elegantly through the snow.
I was incredibly relieved, but also a little bit disappointed it wasn’t a bear.
It was really fucking cold outside but at least it wasn’t snowing. It was nice to hear the birds singing again. I didn’t think I’d heard them since we’d been in the Rockies.